The Fond Eye Doth Teach
by Nishy
Summary: Glorfindel was a little enamoured of the twins, if he were honest. But then, wasn't everyone? WARNING: SLASH.


**Title**: The Fond Eye Doth Teach  
**Pairing**: Glorfindel/Elrohir, Elladan/Elrohir  
**Rating**: PG13  
**Summary**: Glorfindel was a little enamoured of the twins, if he were honest. But then, wasn't everyone?   
**Warnings**: Slash. Incest (implied)   
**Author's Notes**: I didn't have a Tolklang scholar help with the Tengwar or the Sindarin translations, so it is possible that they are flawed. Let us hope not. See footnotes for translations. 

The tiles of Imladris baked, coloured ones growing too hot for elven feet and white ones reflecting Vása's merciless glare back up into the still air. The buzzing insects in the surrounding environs had struck up a chorus shortly after dawn; now it was full afternoon and they had not yet taken intermission. 

Glorfindel wore nothing but a pair of silk trousers, and still the heat was torturous. He was stretched out on a wooden seat near the river: knees hooked over one of its arms, head resting on the other, eyes half-lidded, wretched in the weather. The seat was made for two, but it was far too hot to take the chance of someone sitting beside him. His own body heat was bad enough. 

Shafts of light hung in the air above his head, dusting the golden hair plastered to his forehead where they descended. A cloud of midges drifted in from riverwards, and he momentarily considered allowing them to feast on him as an exertion-free alternative to swatting them away. The first few needling bites changed his mind quickly, but his defence lacked enthusiasm. 

"Thirsty, pen-iaur?" The voice rolled over him like fog, cool even in such miserable temperatures. He tipped his head back to give its owner a look of mournful envy. 

Elrohir smiled at him, already dipping a ladle into the large urn resting on his hip. The youth appeared unforgivably comfortable in the heat, fully clothed, his hair bound neatly up off his neck. He was not even sweating, so far as Glorfindel could tell. Sparing him another baleful glare, the lord sat up and nodded, reaching for the proffered ladle. 

"I am making the rounds," Elrohir informed him, shaking the urn to demonstrate. Water chimed against the sides, marking it around half-emptied. "Elladan was supposed to, but he looked so pitiful I sent him off to go lie down." Glorfindel could commiserate. 

He took another ladleful, then stretched out again on the bench, hair hanging down over the arm, staring off into the treetops. 

"Much as I'd like to stay and chat," Elrohir remarked with some amusement, "I think there are others who need this." Glorfindel waved a hand listlessly in response, and the twin chuckled. "I'll be back around when I've refilled." 

The insects buzzed with renewed fervour as Elrond's son moved away, marking his progress by determining the places he no longer occupied. Thoughts were prone to wandering in the heat; Glorfindel's rose up and swirled before him like waking dreams. 

He was immensely proud of the twins, both as a tutor--for they used and improved upon their education admirably--and as a friend, for they were honourable and kind and generally good company. It was odd where one found family. His rightful one had long passed the borders of Endóre, before he had been reborn, but time moved strangely in the Halls and neither had he seen them in his second childhood in Valinor. Now, here, he had found family of a different sort--Elrond Eärendil's son, his wife Celebrían, their twin sons. Even Elrond's kinsman Erestor, stiff as he tended to be. There was room for Glorfindel there; he belonged to them. 

He was a little enamoured of the twins, if he were honest. But then, wasn't everyone? It was a lucky thing they were (for the most part) well-behaved. The favourite sons of Imladris could have gotten away with most anything, but they did not abuse the fact too terribly. He was proud of that, too. 

Glorfindel shifted on the bench, the skin of his back sticking uncomfortably to the lacquered wood, and muttered a fervent wish for a breeze. It may have only been his imagination, but the air seemed to grow even stiller. 

Figured. 

He pictured himself melting, seeping down into the ground to join the hidden pockets of water below... 

He had taught them to swim, in the shallow pond in the garden. The memory loomed in the haze before him now--two tiny raven-haired sea-monsters stalking him through the waterlilies, giggling to show white gap-toothed grins. Of course, the pond was near dried up this time of year, and what was left went to keep the garden alive. But he remembered the days so clearly it almost cooled him for a moment, and that was to be praised. 

He had taught them to read, and that was an even colder memory. Huddled around the hearth, they had refused even to look at his carefully prepared letter cards; the first proper snow had come and they wanted out in it. Glorfindel knew when to bow to the inevitable. So he'd bundled them up, led them outside, and tramped enormous words into the drifts with his boots--_loss_, snow, _ring_, cold, _nim_, white. 

A bird landed on the bench back and chattered cheerfully. He glared, though it probably wasn't very effective in his listless state. The bird scolded and flew off again. 

Of course, he could not begin to take credit for all their learning. Erestor had given them numbers and logic, politics and woodscraft; their mother and father, of course, had taught far more than he or Erestor ever could. But there was something delightfully unique about the position of educator, where one could be both professional and familiar. Undoubtedly his favourite memories of the twins were mostly at their lessons, formal or informal. 

And if he had something of a one-track mind, well--he was a little taken with the Sons of Elrond. Wasn't everyone? 

Elrohir had always had an affinity for mathematics, precision, intricacy; Elladan was freer, with less patience for details but a greater flexibility of expression. Competition for their friendship was fierce among the younger elves of the city, though neither were seemingly aware of it. They had their father's gift of diplomacy; however, the fact that they treated everyone as their equal only heated the competition. Glorfindel knew he was privileged in that respect--he need never fight the masses for their attention, only come up with something new to teach them. 

A slight breeze picked up, but before he had time even to sigh in relief it died again. Waiting very hopefully, alas, did not produce another. (Nor did it produce an unnaturally composed lordling with a refilled urn, which was rather a shame.) 

He sighed softly and acknowledged that, really, he was a little in love with the twins. Who wasn't? Of course, Glorfindel had seen their tantrums and tears, their vices, their flaws. Still, he did not think himself so much different from those carefully-dressed youths that waited with hopeful eyes at celebrations to ask for a dance. Admittedly he did not have to wait among them--but that was privilege of his profession as tutor. 

He had, of course, taught them to dance. Oh, yes, counting out paces to his own clapping, humming vague tunes for their feet to learn by, he had drilled them mercilessly to be ready for that first formal occasion of their thirtieth year, by which time young lordlings were expected to know such things. True to form, Elladan had a natural flair for improvising and a chaotic sort of grace; he was not, however, interested in the complex steps and delicate patterns of movement that Glorfindel so loved. Elrohir, on the other hand--well, they had both made him proud at the event. But it was Elrohir who had begged more lessons, who had spent hours of free time practicing both under Glorfindel's tutelage and alone, and occasionally with others in the city who shared the pastime. 

Ai, and how he danced now--of course, when he had offered a hand to his tutor last night at the festivities (a farewell feast for delegates from Lórien) it had not been a show of favour. It had been the beginning of a performance, and the Elda had met the challenge with relish. He knew better than to believe he could still match Elrohir, but the steps his pupil chose were entirely familiar. They had practiced together long and hard for him to learn them, and now...now they were effortless, the movements precise but fluid, that lithe body turning and arching with such balletic grace that it made Glorfindel-- 

The seneschal groaned softly at the image, closing his eyes to try and clear it. The last thing he needed was a few more degrees. The memory persisted despite, lifting his temperature in a rush; stirring him vaguely, unbearably. The heat was a slow misery, and the slowest ones always seemed the worst. 

Somewhere in his dozing brain Glorfindel decided he could wait for Elrohir--rather, he corrected himself, the water Elrohir carried--no longer. The well was near enough, and dumping a bucket over his head was a very appealing idea once he got over having to move to do so. Before he could quite reconcile himself to that aspect, there was the sound of someone approaching. 

Tiny pinpricks of sudden cold burned on his abdomen, forcing a strangled gasp. The sensation, compounded with the sight that met his shocked eyes as they fluttered open, did some quite unfortunate things to his current state. Elrohir stood over him, shirtless now, ladle in hand and a wicked grin on his features. 

"You looked a little warm," he said innocently. "It's straight from the well. Cold enough?" 

Glorfindel managed a few syllables, though not particularly comprehensible ones. Elrohir laughed softly, delightedly, and reached out to wipe slowly-warming droplets from the elder elf's skin, a trace of childlike glee in his eyes. Glorfindel clenched his jaw, trying not to misinterpret the action. _Ai, pen-neth, you have no idea what you are doing to me! _

"I can hazard a guess..." A slight blush crossed the lordling's features, though he looked more pleased with himself than anything. Glorfindel stared for a moment before realizing, to his chagrin, that his own comment had been voiced. He was entirely unsure of how to proceed--to apologise, perhaps, as he still had the suspicion he was mistaking the younger elf's intent... 

"Your trousers are really quite thin," Elrohir added helpfully, having taken his silence for confusion, and blushed more fiercely. The words were so strange coming from this twin--ever the slightly shyer, ever the more discreet--and Glorfindel found himself, oddly enough, stifling a laugh. Elrohir grinned again slowly, then bent at the waist, covering the lord's mouth with his own. A careful kiss, maybe, but neither so innocent nor so inexperienced as his tutor would have expected; and besides, he was nothing if not a quick learner. 

Another icy trickle nipped Glorfindel's skin, just under his ribcage this time. He reached out to grab the lordling's wrist with a soft growl, and only succeeded in spilling the rest of the ladleful over himself. Elrohir giggled softly as he squeaked, and warm palms spread the cold puddle up and over his chest. 

"Glorfindel?" A curious voice snagged him like cobwebs in a cellar, and the grey eyes before him blew away in spidersilk wisps as the world slowly came back into focus. The new image confused him for a moment, and two pairs of those eyes watched as he reluctantly brushed away the remains of the too-sweet dream. 

A dream. Elbereth, did they have to wake him from that of all dreams? No one stirred him from his nightmares, when he would rather have been disturbed. His thoughts slowly completed their circuit, at last lighting as a lazy butterfly back upon the present. 

Elrohir had, apparently, returned--still fully dressed, though he bore every indication of having just been in a waterfight, so perhaps he felt the unforgiving sun just like everyone else. It was Elladan who had spoken, standing at his brother's side, equally as soaked and equally as desirable. They looked on him with concern; he could almost hear them wonder whether the heat had gotten to him as Elladan held out the ladle, full and inviting. 

Glorfindel could admit, if pressed, that he was a little jealous of the twins (though surely he was not the only one?). Even when apart they were together; they had a glow, a synchronicity, a harmony of coexistence no one could hope to match. And when together, here before him like this with arms around one another, looking for all the world like two hands or two eyes--opposite and yet precisely the same--it was too obvious how little room there was for anyone else in the sphere they inhabited. 

He took the ladle and sipped a little, then emptied the rest over his head, curbing his fevered brain with the icy threads that spilled down his scalp. Sometimes it was hard to remember they were two. Sometimes it was hard not to wish they were only one. 

Though they had heard it before, he had taught them the tale of Maeglin (in much more accurate detail, to be sure, than another tutor could have). He painted the story for them as only one who had been there knew it, casting Maeglin for the brooding and ill-favoured elf he had known, startling them at appropriate moments and making the story entirely new. He told them in dramatic tones of the traitor's unnatural love for Idril, too close of kin, and the treachery that lead to his death at their great-grandfather's hand. 

When he had finished, to his surprise, their first question--they always had a thousand for each of his stories--was whether Idril their great-grandmother had reciprocated the love. Even a little, they had asked, even for a moment? For surely she had been blessed where Maeglin was cursed... 

Glorfindel had not understood then the urgency behind the inquiries, for they were only just of the age at which love begins to hold any interest; it was surely natural to be curious about all aspects of such tales, when they were entering into the wide world where these things happened. Ah, but he understood now...too well he understood, for there were some things a young lord (or two) could not ask his father. And they, of course, had always been fortunate enough to have Glorfindel for such questions. _I pen-iaur Glorfindel_, he thought with a trace of sadness, _who gives honest answers and never judges them for the questions. _

How could he? Everyone knew how love clouded judgment. And he'd taught them everything they had wanted to know without hesitation--not, as in most of his lessons, by demonstration (however desperately he would have liked to), but with detached and clearly-worded explanations. 

Much as he longed to deny it, he knew--_knew_--that he was a little heartbroken by the twins. But that was a grief for him, and him alone; no one else saw what he saw when he looked. No one else knew, as did Glorfindel, how much more those little touches meant than simple brotherly affection. 

People spoke of students teaching the tutor. He supposed they had, in a grand sweeping metaphorical way, taught him as much as he had them. But that was not what he desired from them, and metaphors had never done much to satisfy the desperate little yearning of a hopeless want. His first life had been something of a consistent skip from lover to lover, but he occupied a very different role and thus a considerably different outlook in this incarnation. If he were Erestor, he might have remarked upon how interesting a study it would make for the concept of nature versus nurture; but he had never been like Erestor in either life, nor any role thereof. 

Watching the twins was a slow misery, and the slowest ones always seemed the worst. 

_Were_ the worst, he amended. In the last life he had gone out in a blaze of brightness and glory, like a charge of black powder. In this one he could feel himself slowly scorching, melting like a tall candle, burning himself down to the quick in tiny endless increments. 

That was where this heat came from, surely, this maddening heat that made his thoughts a vortex and let all the suppressed longings free to prey upon him. It was the feel of the pillar burning down, it was the flame consuming the wick and the wax and the world. It was why the twins now watched him so intently, looking worried, looking afraid--they watched him burn, bit by bit, watched him burn. But no more watching, now they were speaking. They were speaking, holding out the urn, offering him more water, more cold; trying to douse the flames, trying to stop the candle in the usual way of quenching fire. 

They couldn't do it that way, Glorfindel knew. But they could snuff the candle, if they liked, and he was a little infatuated with them. A little desperate for them, a little--a lot--in love. The heat was helping, he thought, they had finally noticed him burning, noticed him, watched him. Saw him, had seen him. 

"Golweryth-nín," the golden lord spoke, in a flame-dry voice, "Perhaps it is time for another lesson."

  
_pen-iaur_: old one  
_pen-neth_: young one  
_I pen-iaur Glorfindel_: rough translation of 'good old Glorfindel.'  
_golweryth-nín_: my students 


End file.
